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[Super Sailor Fulgurite]
HP: 65/75

Fulgurite was very thankful to find that he was suddenly very much no longer alone.

He didn't know where the others came from -- assumed they fell down the hole like he did, but he quickly pursued the voice that actually called out his name. "Hey!" he swept behind Sylvite, quite happy to put a general between himself and the youma, and ran up to the captain who had been calling his name. Wasn't sure who that was, but--

"I'm here!"

He glanced up above them, before looking back to the purple-haired captain. "Please tell me you have some other way out of here other than around the ******** anglerfish youma."

Or maybe the youma would just listen and they could all... leave.

The youma shrank back as the general in the group brandished a knife it’s way. It seemed to deflate as it crouched behind the rock, the low hiss it had been making turning into something closer to a whine. Its fingers moved restlessly on the rock, scraping over the surface.

“Mine…” It whined to itself in protest, its eyes closing to the barest of white slits. “I caught it… its mine…”

It watched impatiently as the others gathered together in the darkness, figuring out who was who and how they’d gotten there. There was some talk of what to do as well, but most of it wasn’t of much interest to the youma. They were running everything. They were in it’s nest, mucking about… keeping it from the energy it wanted. While the concept of ‘fairness’ was a little bit much for it, it could feel possessiveness, annoyance, frustration… It knew it had caught the young man and drained him, tucking him here were he should have been safe enough from discovery, if the intruders hadn’t fallen through the ceiling.

“Leave!” It finally dared to peek it’s head around the corner, delivering it’s demand in a higher pitched tone than before. “Go! My place… mine! You leave!”

“Bad…” It murmured again, grumbling. “Bad people. Go away.”

General Rakovanite

Rakovanite dropped from the cavernous hole from the ceiling in a messy heap. A grunt escaped him as he hit the ground, and he pushed immediately to lay on his back, staring up at the craggy rocks overhead- no visible youma. And then craning to look more slowly around the smooth walls of the clearing. It was quieter here. Darker. But nothing was immediately trying to kill him.

He shut his eyes, breath coming in quiet, shaky gasps that felt obnoxiously like they reverberated through his entire body and drowned out everything else in the vicinity.

But it couldn’t be the only thing, or even the most important thing. Sylvite and Feldpsar had gone before him. They were here somewhere. Probably. He sat up, was besieged by the urge to vomit as a pain more substantial than a “sting” volted through his right arm.

Rakovanite didn’t need a medical degree to see that it’d been yanked out of its socket. Skin shredded by grappling teeth and claws where the fabric was thinnest, less so where the metal of his gloves had protected his forearm and hand. He’d been warned that it would happen more easily after the first time, so probably shouldn’t be too surprised that a bunch of youma making a grab at him was enough to do it. It was unfortunate that Narcissus wasn’t around to do anything about it this time.

But he was still getting up. He was getting up because there wasn’t any other choice in the matter.

His teeth grit, pinching tight to his cheek as he dragged himself up and tried to focus on what was around him. He could hear distant talk over the rush of his own breath, but seeing was another matter entirely.

’Sylvite!’

Feldspar was here. Rakovanite’s gaze swiveled in the direction of the voice not far off. A handful of yards at most.

He still couldn’t see much of anything though. If he inspected the frame kf his glasses with the fingers in his hood hand, he could discern that one of the lenses had popped out. The other, heavily splintered. An alarmingly consistent problem, but he was relatively certain that if he squinted through the cracks in the lens, Rakovanite could see splodges of color near glowing creatures. A particular blob of pink broke from the group and moved nearer to him.

Sylvite looking for Feldspar. He kept in her direction, only her vibrant hair visible enough to be a beacon for where he was going.

It was such a lucky coincidence that the two people he cared about had managed not to be too separated during the fall. Feldspar was leaning against the rocks, looking battered but not any more broken than he’d already been, and Sylvite had run over here from the rest of the group. She was either completely adrenaline drugged or not terribly worse for wear.

Good.

He touched a hand to the stone for support, but was too afraid of going down and not getting back up to lean on it more than that. “You made it,” he murmured on a soft breath.

stari_maga

Seiana_ZI

Whimsical Blue

Shiningamisgirl

EchosSweet

Lieutenant Feldspar

Alright. Feldspar inhaled slowly, then let out the breath through a soft whistle. If he ignored the scattered stings from various bumps and bruises, he was pretty sure he was actually mostly fine, for all the commotion that had brought him here. There were probably monsters lurking, but he wasn't dead yet. Or frozen in crystal. So could be worse. Yep, could definitely be worse. Since he wasn't horribly mangled, he should probably be thinking of how to get out.

Then a high-pitched voice was shouting for him, and he could hear hurried steps over smooth stone. Sylvite hadn't landed too far, then. He wasn't alone.

Feldspar just wasn't sure if that was ideal or not. He preferred it, himself, but... It meant Sylvite was separated from the group too... She was his general, perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but she was still a young girl, in a pretty s**t situation, and she definitely didn't sound like she was having a good time of it.

He pushed himself to his feet, back against the stone and started moving toward her voice, coming from the bioluminescent creatures and chatter he could hear further off in the distance. As he drew nearer, he could make her out better, though she was pretty shadowed from the backlight. But she was upright and moving, and what more could he really asked for? Feldspar reached for her, patting both his hands to her shoulders as if to judge her solidity.

"It's okay, it's okay. We're good, alright?" He told her, warm brown eyes scanning up and down her frame. "Are you hurt, or-?" But he didn't think so. Or at least not any way worse than he was. "I'm here. I'm fine. It's fine. We're good." To some extent, at least. They weren't alone or critically wounded... for the most part.

He barely had a chance to catch his breath before Rakovanite was there too, leaning against the wall behind him, looking altogether less great than Sylvite and not selling the whole "not mangled" bit. Feldspar still wasn't entirely clear on what had happened, but he hadn't been blind to seeing Rakovanite somewhere in the middle of it. And not dead yet from it, so? Fortunate? He guessed? "Okay, cool. Now we can all die together."

stari_maga

Indigo_Plateau

Then Feldspar was there, and not, like, suffering in a heap or anything, but putting his arms on her shoulders and talking to her. For about five seconds, Sylvite didn't have anything to say at all.

She just leaned in closer, her forehead brushing his chest before she threw her own arms all the way around him, letting the knife vanish and ignoring the way that the contact irritated all those little scrapes and bruises that she'd picked up. She was just glad that he was here, with her, and she wanted to make sure that he wasn't a figure of her imagination or another swarm of youma in a trenchcoat or anything.

He seemed solid, though. He seemed like himself, as much as she could tell.

"You're okay," she finally said, for once her voice actually coming out quiet. "I'm not hurt bad or anything."

There was definitely blood matted in her hair, and under other circumstances she wouldn't say that she was doing great, but considering everything that had just happened, she'd gotten off pretty easy.

There was another voice. She knew that voice. It was Rakovanite's voice, and she turned towards him slowly, blinking and a little bit blank-eyed as she took in the fact that while looking pretty rough, he didn't exactly look like a ghost.

"You're supposed to be dead," she said, and something about the way she was talking sounded weird , even to her, like she wasn't sure if she was happy or mad so it just came out flat and awkward. "It said that in the pamphlet, remember? No starseeds unless you wanna die." Her voice cracked a tiny bit. "I couldn't help you."

She glanced sideways back to Feldspar at his comment. "No!" she said, some of the energy coming back. "No more of that stuff. We can do this. We can get out of here."

She hadn't pulled out any starseeds. She didn't want to die, and she wasn't about to lose more charges, either. She'd carry him again if she had to. The youma at the top of the hole would have to tire out again eventually.

General Rakovanite

His breath was soft and shaking, trembling as it slipped past his lips. The most important thing to him was that neither of his allies were mortally damaged. Whatever happened at the expense of that was just a necessary cost. He eyed the pair through squinted lids, partially trying to see through the darkness, partially from looking through his cracked glasses. Had they always been that friendly toward each other, hugging and such? He canted his head slightly, quizzical but silent.

'You're supposed to be-'

Rakovanite watched her steadily, trying to judge the peculiar tone to her voice, but not quite able to discern what Sylvite was feeling. Anger, maybe, for the appearance of a starseed making their interrogation efforts unsuccessful, but trying to control herself in the otherwise quiet landscape. Indifference, perhaps. People were lost easily enough. He had barely ever seen her anything but bubbly; he didn't have any other experiences to base whatever this was off of.

"I... suppose I expected it was a slight exaggeration," he admitted on a quiet murmur. "The threat of death starts to lose a little of its sting when it is used so frequently and not always the promised outcome." He gave a tiny gesture with the only hand he could move, as if indicating that he was alive to prove the point.

There was more than that, but he found it... difficult to try and explain, and she would surely think him incompetent, regardless. After several quiet moments, he glanced back to Sylvite. "Have you ever watched wolves hunt?" He asked softly. "They go as a pack, but they do not all chase at once. They take turns. When one is tired, it falls back. Another take its place."

"There were... many youma to join that fight when the first were weakened or threatened. Do you think so many would have remained dormant if the others started getting dusted?" He hadn't seen any senshi readying their attacks, though a scattered few agents had immediately launched into a fight at Faustite's command, not that they'd been able to take anything down very quickly. If senshi magic had started flying all around the cavern, he could only imagine how tumultuous that would have made others feel. "We will never know..." Sylvite wouldn't have known, regardless. She'd already been heading down here. "But I do know that whether they were being attacked or not, no youma would be paying mind to anything but a starseed when one was presented."

"I am sorry if I scared you, but I never expected you to do anything to help me."

He touched a hand to Feldspar's shoulder and gave the tiniest of nudges. "Come on." There were others around here. He could hear voices, almost like arguing, and there had been others agents to descend with Sylvite. "We should try not to further separate ourselves from the group."

stari_maga

EchosSweet

General Sylvite

Enough other stuff was going on that Sylvite only gave the tiniest annoyed sigh at yet another hunting metaphor.

"No, I didn't think Faustite's plan was good," she said, the weird numbness fading out of her tone a little bit at a time as it became more and more obvious that her friend was right there, still alive and still trying to defend his bad starseed decisions. "Of course there's more youma hiding around in the freaking Rift."

Feldspar was doing a pretty good job telling Rakovanite just how his little distraction could have gotten them all killed, and rubbing it in too much more seemed like overkill, especially with how he had gotten hurt. Even in the shadows, she could see blood on his uniform, which couldn't be a good sign, and she could definitely tell that something was up with his arm.

Everything that had just happened was still a lot, though. It was way too much for Sylvite to keep quiet about. She gave a slow, drawn out exhale, shaking her head.

"Remember back when I was telling you about my old General? When I was saying that a bunch of his recruits turned out weird?" She nodded upwards, even though hopefully, that cavern had cleared out by now. "He's one of them. Faustite. Super violent, doesn't care about making scenes or getting stuff riled up."

She glanced back to Feldspar for a second. The question had been posed at Rakovanite, but the information was for him, too.

"But trying to get everything around to come after you without telling anyone was also like-" she paused, trying to keep from sounding mad and having it almost work, "Really bad. We coulda figured out something else, or I could've been backup at least."

Then she seemed to burn out some. Her face softened, and her voice dropped, too. "I want to be there for you, Van. We're friends. You know that, right?"

Her boot covers were basically ruined, anyway, from the little thief youma, so she tugged one off, revealing shorter pink boots and black leggings underneath. She held it out to the other General. "You could sling it until we get back to the others?"

Not that she was entirely sure how that was going to work when she was the only one of them with all her limbs working, but they'd figure something out.

Captain Prehnite
HP: 63

“Thank you” expressed with a touch of sincerity as Prehnite eyed the exit warily. Nothing better to do than trust the creature - nothing better to go off of than it’s words and the light filtering in from where it motioned - a possible exit.

Prehnite turned back and whistled towards the others, before making a break for the way out, weapons kept at the ready - just in case. Regardless, he was more than happy to try and be gone from the place before the youma got too irritated with them.

Prehnite Exit!